Federal Council spokesman Andre Simonazzi says details of the June 21 visit are being worked out, adding only that President Alain Berset would welcome Francis.

St. John Paul II was the last pope to visit Switzerland, in 2004, one of his last trips.

Journalist Raphael Zbinden of Cath-info, an official media portal for the Catholic church in Switzerland, said Pope Francis' visit was timed for the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches, which is based in Geneva.

Spokeswoman Marianne Ejdersten of the WCC, which counts 348 member churches in 110 countries — but not the Roman Catholic church — said Wednesday its general-secretary, Olav Fykse Tveit, would attend a news conference Friday at the Vatican.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the 20 leading industrial and developing countries are meeting in Argentina at a summit that has been eclipsed by growing concerns over the potential of a global trade war following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to slap import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Thirteen Japanese cult members may be sent to the gallows any day now for a deadly 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and other crimes. But when is uncertain. Such is the secrecy that surrounds Japan's death penalty system.

An Indian company that is partnering with the Trump Organization on an office tower project has been accused of running an elaborate real estate swindle that cheated investors out of nearly $150 million, according to complaints filed with Indian authorities.

The U.N. human rights chief told an informal meeting of the Security Council Monday that the Syrian government's five-year siege of the Damascus suburbs of eastern Ghouta has involved "pervasive war crimes," use of chemical weapons and starvation as a weapon of war.